Christmas and an Update on Malachi

This Christmas was much more enjoyable than last year. Last year we all were gloomy with the homesick bug. This year we enjoyed a late lunch of goat, rice, chapattis (thick tortilla thingy), and sodas with the kids at Shalom Home. For dinner we ate impromptu breakfast burritos with the Williams. It is such a blessing to have people that we are close to to celebrate with, and do “life” with. We had a special visitor during dinner....a 4 inch creepy grasshopper, that created chaos which led to screaming leading to extreme laughter (at least for me).

The boys at Shalom are preparing the rice (all 30 pounds of it).

The goat....

The boys are very excited!!!

Can you find Samuel and Joshua?

Malachi Update:

If you remember a month ago we left Kampala, after a hectic medical ordeal with Malachi. Upon leaving we had 2 options. 1) We could go to Nairobi, Kenya for more testing or we could 2) wait for a month and retest his lab work to see if things cleared up. We choose the later. The "wait and see" approach seemed the best fit because we (doctors included) were all in agreement that it was most likely a virus causing havoc on his system and in his results.

The day following Christmas we drove to Lira, about 4 1/2 hours away, to get his blood retested. We were trying to avoid going all the way to Kampala as it is not an easy journey (12 hours) and is quite expensive. In Lira we had his blood tested for general things like white blood cell count (WBC), red blood cell (RBC) count, etc. We were hoping that all would come back normal. Unfortunately this did not happen. He is still anemic according to his blood, and there are some other concerns. However outwardly he is not showing severe symptoms that need immediate attention. He is having random fevers now and then, has a decreased appetite, and weight loss. He is also tired a lot of the time due to his anemia. The question now is to find out what is causing the anemia. It looks like something is causing his RBC’s to break down. It is possible that it will take several more weeks for everything to be normal from the previous virus, but the random fever, and poor appetite are a little alarming to us. These random fevers were even occurring before this whole ordeal. So we were left with more questions than answers. Now what?

We were finally able to consult with a couple doctors, and one is advising us to get a more detailed Full Blood Count that we had done before in Kampala with Liver Functioning, etc. Cody is going to take Malachi to Kampala to get some tests ran on Monday. Either way the tests turn out it looks like Cody and Malachi will travel to Nairobi, Kenya in February to meet one of the American doctors we have been consulting, unless we find something new that needs immediate attention. We would appreciate your prayers. Pray for wisdom, and direction.